Media and Marketing—Awareness Counts

Media and Marketing—Awareness Counts

How do you get information about manufacturing/production and technology? Are you concerned with the influence of advertisers over editorial? Are you aware if the article you’re reading is from a supplier or “objective” reporter?

I have a friend who left traditional Business-To-Business (B2B) media to go out on his own (no, this isn’t about me in third person!). His mantra is “I don’t take advertising, so I can tell the truth.”

I have another friend in the business (as well as me) who says, “What? You think I don’t tell the ‘truth’ even though there is advertising on my site!?”

I say, “If you want to advertise, call me” 😉 But I’ll say what I want.

Oh, there’s a surprise at the bottom of the post.

Mixing Advertising and Reporting

The New Republic is a magazine with a 100-year heritage. It’s opinionated, but respected. It’s now disintegrating. Maybe.

The problem seems to be the new owner who suddenly wants to see a profit. When the sales department runs a magazine, a continuous tension between editors (who like to think they are independent observers and reporters of events) and sales (who think all articles should promote their clients) is inevitable.

The other issue is writing articles to generate online traffic. Utilize search engine optimization (SEO), the bosses say. Editors traditionally say, who cares. I’m writing the truth.

The New York Times has reported on the New Republic fiasco.

The quintessential social media mogul — Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate — buys the ultimate symbol of the old media, a progressive opinion journal that dates back to the Woodrow Wilson administration. What could possibly go wrong?

And so what started out as a fairy tale turned into a cautionary one about this fraught moment in the history of the media, when news meetings at even the most respected publications are increasingly taken up with conversations about audience development and search engine optimization.

[One contributor] said that though the values of the magazine, and its focus on long, thoughtful stories, were paramount, “the media environment in which The New Republic operates has changed.”

 

I don’t believe SEO is necessarily all that bad. My Website designer (Jon DiPietro now of Authentia] and I looked at the keywords that would relate to what I write about, studied their Google strength, and then built in an SEO component in the Website.

The problem occurs especially for The New Republic when sales begins ordering a change in the entire format of the magazine from longer, more thoughtful articles to short snippets designed solely for maximizing page views therefore maximizing ad impressions therefore maximizing the dollar value of the banner ads.

This, by the way, is a short-term strategy. It’s the last gasp of a dying model. But change will require a total restructuring of the model, the role of sales, the role of writers, the problems of suppliers promoting their products and services.

Marketers’ dilemma

Actually, still another issue is that marketers increasingly want to write articles that look just like editorial but are actually advertising. The idea is to trick readers into reading the article as if it were written by an “objective” reporter. Perhaps then, people will read and believe.

I guess that marketers believe that readers will not read articles written by marketing managers—especially engineers—because they are expecting nothing more than a sales pitch. And, we’re all tired of constant sales pitches.

But marketing communications people exist to get their message out in whatever way they can. And why do they think that their message is so lacking in substance that they must resort to trickery?

Solution?

In our industry, technology comes from suppliers. We live on technology among other things. We need to know about the new technologies—what they are and how they are used. This comes from suppliers and early adopters.

I tell marketing professionals when I consult with them (either for free or for a fee) to start a blog. They can get their message out in their own way. But, I always say, ensure that the information is clear, relevant, devoid of “marketing speak”—superlatives and other overboard bragging, and above all technical.

I will read supplier information if it meets those criteria. To be honest, I don’t read supplier articles in trade magazines—haven’t for 30 years. I have higher expectations for the level of content in a magazine. But that’s just me—and old, former editor.

There are a few supplier blogs that I know (if there are others, let me know) and follow for useful information:

 

Advice for a reader

  • In all your reading and television/movie watching, be alert for subtle messages designed to sway you
  • Don’t fall for link bait
  • Take care passing along information as fact when it hasn’t been verified
  • Find your trusted sources and support them

 

And finally, if you don’t like click bait, don’t click

 

Media and Marketing—Awareness Counts

Manufacturing Connection Updates for mid-August

Unsubscribe

I sometimes do some consulting on digital marketing and have noticed something about the “unsubscribe” feature in distributed email news. Companies provide a number of ways to unsubscribe from newsletters. Some are easy to find. You click, it takes you to a Website, it says “unsubscribed.”

Others hide the unsubscribe link through one of a variety of ways. They may not use the word. The word may not be linked and the link is hard to find, i.e., not underlined or in a different color.

It has been a year since I left Automation World, but they kept my email address alive and forwarded the messages. After a year with an autoreply from my replacement, the only emails I’m getting are newsletters and PR announcements that no longer apply to me.

After leaving day-to-day work at Maintenance Technology, I decided to make a concentrated effort to unsubscribe from everything with the automationworld.com address. I’ve been at it five weeks. My email load is down 75% between that and no more internal communications. What a relief it is!

What do you feel about the unsubscribe process? Or do you ever clean out your inbox occasionally?

Software suppliers expanding footprint

My friend Julie Fraser is an industry analyst specializing in Manufacturing Execution Systems / Manufacturing Operations Management (MES/MOM). Her last blog post looked at companies expanding from MES/MOM and also design into the world of supply chain management.

She rightly considers the major changes that move entails both internally to the supplier and also to the customers.

“Two prominent providers of manufacturing plant floor focused software have recently expanded their scope to include supply chain capabilities.  Camstar has developed Omneo, and Dassault DELMIA, which includes Apriso, just announced its intent to buy Quintiq. These are big expansions of footprint, customer base, and markets.

“Expanding the frame of the problem can be very useful for customers and for software developers.

“Yet these moves are also surely going to put these companies out of their traditional comfort zones. The sales model will need to be different, and the marketing as well.

“Expanding the scope of your vision about what constitutes operations is always a good idea. Make everyone part of the solution and your operations can truly become an efficient and effective part of your business.”

Expanding your vision is almost always a good thing. Bringing additional people into the conversation—people who often have been at odds with each other—is an interesting challenge.

ICS CyberSecurity Conference

I missed the news that Joe Weiss sold his industrial control system cyber security conference to Security magazine. Notice of this year’s iteration just reached me. The ICS Cyber Security Conference will be held October 20-23 in Atlanta.

Weiss says, “It has become paramount that critical infrastructures balance the needs of ICS reliability and safety with cyber security.”

MESA welcomes new sponsor

MESA International announced that Stone Technologies Inc., a national systems integration company focused on project delivery, has joined MESA as a Gold Keystone Sponsor.

“We feel that MESA is the definitive voice for our industry and Stone wants to add its voice to the choir,” said Tom Bruhn, vice president, Advanced Manufacturing Solutions, Stone Technologies. “By partnering with MESA as a Keystone Sponsor, we are better positioned to help influence the markets we serve through education and innovation.”

 

Marketing Manufacturing Solutions

Marketing Manufacturing Solutions

While I was attending the ISA Marketing and Sales Summit in New Orleans in September, I had a chance to talk about marketing manufacturing solutions to manufacturing professionals with Matt Leary of Solutions Insights. This is interesting to people on both sides of the desk.

And, yes, I was so swamped throughout August and September that I’m only now finally catching up. Assuming that there’s more news than I’ve seen for a while, I should be able to get more posts up.

Testing Products With Preconceived Ideas

 

“I am about to start testing these products, and here is my conclusion.”

I was product development manager of a consumer products company and a member of an ASHRAE technical committee when this journalist/tester/writer for Consumer Reports visited a committee meeting and made that statement. That was 30 years ago. I have not read the magazine since.

What brought these memories back is the recent kerfluffle between Elon Musk, CEO of electric car manufacturing company Tesla, and The New York Times.

Seems that a Times reporter took a test drive in a Tesla Model S electric car. His report was less than enthusiastic. Musk took the reporter to task. Soon the Web was full of commentary.

One thing you should know–the Tesla car reported back to the company the details of the trip. Therefore, Musk had facts to rebut some of the report–but not all, it seems. The thing for us all to think about is how this Internet of Things, or Connected Devices, stands to benefit others such as manufacturers and not us, the users.

All arguments aside, what is the constraining factor for the overwhelming adoption of electric cars? Range. Even if range is improving, that is still the worrying thought nagging at the consciousness of all of us who need to go for distances between charging.

The other thing, be wary of some of these “actual use” reports. Read carefully.

Invensys Enhances Social Community

I have often referred to Jim Cahill’s blog as the model for a company-oriented social media effort. His perseverence over many years–going on eight, I believe (gosh, we’re all getting old)–has paid off well.

Maryanne Steidinger told me about the Invensys blogs last October and I subscribed and wrote about them. Invensys Operations Management recently enhanced the entire social media experience. One one “Innovate@IOM” page, you are referred to the various ways the company reaches out to the community. Facebook (which I don’t do for business, but that’s just me), Twitter and a page that shows the many blogs of Invensys leaders from software to hardware to training. Check it out.

If anyone else has something new going, let me know. It all helps build a big automation community and educates us.

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